Avoiding…. sigh….

I am amazed that even at my “age,”

I’m still practicing some old avoidance strategies….

( ps written after the post was completed: I tried to work my way through some confusion, below, with pages I’ve made….this is in the pages section of the blog…I don’t know if new “pages” go out to others…I didn’t put this in the actual blog posts sections….it’s a bit meandering… but, after writing this whole thing…the progression helped…lots of reasoning in it..but maybe I just gave up and said to myself…”okay, okay, I get it, I give up, I’ll shift how I’m looking at things….okay….” 🙄 )

In fairness to my own reluctance…one of the “tasks” will involve classes for 7 months…. of once a month….a weekday evening and all day Saturday classes…not of my own choosing…a somewhat “difficult” area…”required” for a certification…apparently needed, but still difficult to comply with.

I like protecting my time at home…I love being home and don’t like giving up that personal time for things I don’t want to do, aren’t my own choice to do or that I don’t think will lead to enough positive benefit to be worth that time commitment.

I’ve tried looking at what could be, or might be, good about the classes:

I really like the other people who also have to take the class, and seldom see them, so this will be a nice opportunity

I never know when I might learn something really special…something that leads to greater understanding or insight; that happened at a workshop that I went to last week…one idea that was simply remarkable and that I have used everyday with the kids in my class, and at home too….so there might be some of those….there probably will be…and to be on the “look-out” for those ideas.

In the past few years, I’ve done some things I really didn’t enjoy or that I didn’t think were “worthwhile”…but some unexpected good things came out of those…the good things wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t participated

Sometimes I’m not aware of positives coming out of some things I’ve done…but I don’t really know that…it may be subtle and I don’ t notice it…. or something positive might come out, something I don’t recognize or that hasn’t happened yet.

Going into something, there’s no way to know if something very positive might be learned or happen….but if I don’t go, then nothing will happen….nothing ventured, nothing gained.

It’s good to have any type of certification available…one never knows when extra certifications might open up other opportunities

Even if I don’t like it, I’ll get perspective into how lucky/fortunate I am right now that I have so few things in my life that I don’t like…that many people have so much more of that and can’t do anything much about it…

So……to try to balance the multiple points of view….

Ah, yes…”balance” …choosing what to focus on…

To have the courage, strength and persistence to view this “obligation” through a different lens…or a variety of lenses…to shift out of my own old “habit patterns”

And so…

to trust that so many good things have come my way, often unexpectedly….

and to stay open to the idea that that might happen in this situation…